Experimental dialogue technique
 

This could have gone in the Adventure forum, but it's not just for adventures so I put it here.

I've come up with a new way to control dialogue in games. I think you'll like this.

Simple Reactionary Dialogue Control

I'd copy it here, but it's interactive, so I can't. Please check it out, 'kay? I want to know what you think.

It's very interesting.

Your example shows the problems inherent to this kind of interface, though; at times clicking a button would do the exact opposite of what I'm really trying to do.

In other words, using this interface is a very good idea, as long as it's very carefully tested.

Also, the Fahrenheit system is kind of similar, and it works sometimes really well, and sometimes it ends up being very confusing.

Could you give me an example?

I started playing with it, and I'll wait until I have more time to say more. The first thing that struck me is that it often reminded me of Fahrenheit, whose system was not that much different --- and which also, despite the apparent freedom given, almost always ends up giving the same result.

Another question that struck me. In The Pandora Directive, you need at one point to pry some info from a sweet little old lady. The conversation starts by giving you three choices, labeled (I believe): 'Be honest', 'Little white lie', and 'Big black lie'. How would such a case (or a variant of it, basically anything that neither relies on the opposition nice/angry, nor on the question/statement/meh categories) be handled?

More on this as time permits (which probably means in a couple of weeks ;)).

I don't see how it would work, but I can't see how anything like that could work in real life either, so where's the problem? What I'm trying to do here is a more naturalistic approach to dialogue.

Oh, and just reload to start over.

No. I don't remember exactly what I did the few times I've gone over the conversation. I just know that it felt awkward at times.

On a side note, did you play Discworld? The conversation system is based on 6 icons discribing an approach to the conversation (small talk, joke, question, agressive comment), and it's very similar to yours.

Nope, never played it. Sounds interesting.

Mkay, after the first question I clicked on "!" because it wass supposed to mean "Yes!", but it was interpreted as "Not really, no. Go away now."
Game over.

I don't get it. I don't see how being nice/angry is any more 'naturalistic' than lying/being honest. It really depends on the sort of conversation you're having. Which sends us back to the usual contextual conversation system, doesn't it?

Sorry, that's because it was red. Red is no, blue is yes.

The problem I have is that an exclamation mark alone could mean all kinds of things. Like I once clicked it and it came out saying something like "Yes, I see what you mean. Interesting." Something that I hadn't wanted to say at all ;).

The trouble I find with this is that it goes to the opposite extreme. Instead of directing a character's speech exactly (which you argue against doing) I have almost no idea what the character is going to say. And that makes me feel like I've lost control completely.

Maybe "naturalistic" isn't the word. What I mean is that I'm looking for something which progresses more similarly to real-life discussions. A person who is about to say something honest is not going to suddenly say a "big, black lie", and vice versa.

You don't know me, then. :P

It is, in theory, but in fact it boils down to cliking all the six icons to see all there is to see.

It differs from your approch, now that I think about it, because there's is no tree, just six different dialogs which play after clicking each icon (in Discworld).

What worries me about your take on it is that I would be afraid of missing curcial information by not being able to go back one step. In real life, there's always the possibility of saying "oh wait, I forgot to ask about ...". With your tree, once you've clicked, say, ! instead of ?, you proceed with the discussion, and have to start everything over to see what was hidden behind the ? (with kinda breaks the immersion).

Fahrenheit is really a great illustration of this; not only does the player have the impression of constantly missing things by using the "wrong" dialog options, but also sometimes clicking, say, "stay" (in your example, it could be the "!" option), could mean "please stay with me" or "I want to stay alone", ginving two different and unpredictale outcome.

In other words, it ends up being even more unrealistic that an actual tree.

Of course, I guess that with a perfect implementation it would be possible to avoid the pits...

Okay, let's back up a bit. If this system were used in a game, it would obviously explain how to use it before you start. But since I'm explaining it as a dialogue (to prove that it's doable, mainly), there seems to be some confusion.

You are not the character who is speaking. If it feels like you're not deciding what he is saying, then I think I've done my job correctly. This is a character who I have used on my blog before, who couldn't care less what I have to say. The things he says are not supposed to reflect what you would say in similar circumstances.

What you are picking is only the tone he will speak in.

But there was nothing to miss! I made sure that all paths (except for the ones where early on the player pushes reds) would give all the necessary explanation! The idea is that you would only need to go through once; I imagine such a system would work best in a game which is constantly saving.

But do you think it would be doable (making sure that all paths give all the necessary explanations) in a full scale game?

In any case, my main gripe with this system is its unpredictability (see my Fahrenheit example, or RLacey's post).

Why not?

Because you have to check all the possible conversation paths to be sure that the player can't miss a crucial element, and if there are, say, 5 forks by conversations, that's 3x3x3x3x3 paths to check for each dialog.